Training Athletes in Professional, Amateur and Fitness Boxing Classes in Seattle, WA, Arcaro Boxing Gym is Located in the Cherry Hill / First Hill / Central District area adjacent to the Seattle University Campus. First boxing class or boxing lesson is always free!

Often times blogs come to me from conversations with my boxers, friends or from some post I read via social media. I’ll walk around my day thinking about some concept and the words come to me.

This blog has come about because of our latest amateur competitions and training.

Change, transition and discomfort are a constant in life and we all seem to spend most of our time attempting to avoid the inevitable. We fear, we fight, we avoid, we run, we sleep, anything to get out of anticipated undesirable experiences. We’d rather endure things as they are versus change. We’d rather quit versus have to experience what it would take to go through it.

I am realizing, there really is no way, but straight through each experience in order to grow. It doesn’t matter how much I try to avoid the inevitable, it will be waiting for me around each corner and bend I travel. More and more experiences will pop up until I face what I need to face.

I have some boxers who are so afraid of being hit that they will do any type of movement they can to avoid getting hit. They are unwilling to risk being hit and vulnerable so much that it adversely affects their ability to land punches. They are so adverse to the idea of being struck that they actually put themselves at greater risk of taking horrendous punches.

One must be willing to experience disappointment, failure, let downs, being hurt and a host of other feelings in order to get somewhere new in life and the ring. You must embrace that you are going to be hit to make yourself less likely to be hit.<<<Ya, the sound of 1 hand clapping

There is no way around it, one must be willing to be hit to be in the experience of sparring/fighting. If you are avoiding being hit, tense, worried or defensive, you will not be in the experience, you will not be able to respond to the current events. You will be operating from a fear, from somewhere in your past experience, not where you are actually at.

We started doing some drills where the boxers allowed themselves to be hit. It's a controlled drill to give them an opportunity to learn. Each time they discovered that they were able to know where they were at. They could read the other boxer easier. Being hit gave them tons of usable information whereas being afraid of being hit gave them confusion and uncertainty.

The challenging part will be able to take this controlled practice and implement it in the heat of the moment. But at least for now, a small concept has been planted.

I've learned from experience that it is better to get better at being vulnerable and I want to pass this on so it can be used practically!